Printer Friendly

Email to A Friend

Friday March 31, 2000

Chechen sisters reunited in Israel after 9 years apart

JERUSALEM (Israel Sun) -- After a nine-year separation, Galia Studinovski was reunited last week with her sister, Maria Kolker,
The story of the two sisters began in April 1991, when Studinovski came to Israel with her family while her older sister remaine

In recent years Studinovski tried everything in order to find her sister and bring her to Israel, but her efforts were unsuccessful. After two difficult wars in Chechnya, Studinovski feared she would never see her sister alive again.

In December, while watching the horrors broadcast from Chechnya on a Russian TV channel beamed to Israel, Studinovski spotted her sister among the thousands of Chechen refugees who had fled from the bombings to Ingushetia.

Stunned, she recorded every piece of information that had been broadcast and rushed to contact to the Jewish Agency, which in turn transmitted all the details to the Jewish Agency representative, Abba Faigin in Pyatigorsk, who began an intensive search.

A short time later, with the assistance of Ingushetia's Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, which is responsible for absorption of the refugees, Faigin managed to locate the lost sister. He found her at a refugee camp not far from Troitskaya, suffering from shock and malnourishment.

Faigin transferred Kolker to a convalescent home in Pyatigorsk where she received initial medical treatment. Jewish Agency representatives made sure that she received decent food and warm clothes while Faigin obtained the necessary permits for her aliyah to Israel.

The meeting between the sisters at Ben-Gurion Airport was extremely emotional.

"The whole time we were separated," said Studinovski, wiping the tears from her eyes, "I had a terrible conscience that I had been unable to persuade Maria to come with me to Israel 10 years ago. But now, finally, I am happy."

In addition to Kolker, the Jewish Agency brought 28 other immigrants from the northern Caucasus in Russia, including Ludmilla Nisanov, another Chechen refugee who managed to escape from Grozny via the "Corridor to Life."

Nisanov escaped from Grozny via a corridor, which was opened by an agreement between the rebels and the Russian forces to allow civilians to leave the city before the bombings.

In January, at the recommendation of the Ministry of Ingushetia, Nisanov made contact with the Jewish Agency who quickly facilitated her aliyah. Waiting for her at the airport were her family who made aliyah in 1991 and live in Beersheva.

Did you find this article interesting? Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and you'll be notified each week when "J." goes online. We'll tell you about the most important stories of the week and give you a link to each one.

This page contains a BETA version of Amazon contextual links. They are marked by the dashed underline.  Your purchases support our site. At times they point to items which are not related to the actual link. Please alert us by email if you discover objectionable links.